Line #39 Webcomic/TheWeave


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/4317dc52_2faf_48c1_94c4_253952dfcb7f.png]]
2	''[[https://weavecomic.com/ The Weave]]'' is a Webcomic written and drawn by Rennie Kingsley which has been ongoing since May 2014. It was originally published on tumblr, but has since moved to its own site.
3
4	Protagonist is Tally Llewellyn, an unlucky young woman who's been in search for a job ever since she lost her college tuition. She's made it so far with the help of her friends and the aunt who raised her, but it's clear that things can't go on like that. When she's offered to start on short notice as a waitress, Tally happily jumps at the opportunity -- only to witness a murder under strange circumstances on her first working day. Suddenly she has visions, supernatural things happen around her, and acquaintances she supposed were human bring her to [[TheFairFolk a court of fairies]] where some people are desperately trying to find out what happened, whereas others sure would be interested in keeping the only witness quiet.
5
6	----
7	!!''The Weave'' provides examples of:
8
9	* AllOfTheOtherReindeer: Shizuka Sato, Ruby's sergeant in the guard, makes it clear that she despises her and would rather Ruby quit her job. Also Kitty's girlfriend Luna, from a completely different social circle, strongly dislikes Ruby.
10	* AlmostKiss: Between [[spoiler: Tally and Ruby]], but Kitty comes in as a MomentKiller.
11	* AngerBornOfWorry: After Tally witnessed a murder, disappeared without a trace and then shows up again with some weird changes about her, Delia takes to shouting at her for a while, but soon makes it clear that she was going crazy with worry.
12	* ArrangedMarriage: As is the norm for fairy nobility, Emil was married off as soon as he was old enough, alongside a bunch of other young men and women. It was an extremely formal, impersonal matter -- he met his wife only a few times and talked to her maybe once, but with their culture being what it is, there was nothing else expected of his role in this union. [[spoiler:He did, however, fall passionately in love with his co-spouse Rohan.]] Though by the time the comic starts, Emil is already a widower.
13	* BlindSeer: Isabeau seems to be one, as she wears a blindfold. She can tell who Tally is and make some obscure predilections about her based on drinking [[ThePowerOfBlood a drop of her blood]].
14	* BloodOath: Enforced by murder victim Rhiannon, who got her blood on Tally (who also had an open wound at the time) immediately before dying. [[spoiler:It allows her to contact Tally [[TalkingInYourDreams through her dreams]], but Tally really only sealed the deal when she ''[[IGaveMyWord agreed]]'' to help avenging Rhiannon.]]
15	* BornUnlucky: Tally has been told by her aunt that, when she was born, there had been no stars at the sky, especially no lucky ones. After years of flops and failures, Tally is inclined to believe it.
16	* ChekhovsSkill: Early on, we see Tally climb into the window of her flat over the fire escape, which seems to be a regular procedure because she often forgets her keys. [[spoiler:Her climbing skills come in handy when a werewolf-like fairy hunts her up a building and over a roof.]]
17	* ClaimedByTheSupernatural: After the dying murder victim touches her injured hand, Tally's wound heals and she gets a strange flower-shaped mark in place of it. [[spoiler:It's Rhiannon's sign that connects her and Tally, making it possible for Rhiannon's ghost to communicate with her. Emil shows to have a similar mark on his chest, explaining that he is "bound, too".]]
18	* DamselOutOfDistress: You'd think with Tally's anxieties she's rather [[DamselInDistress helpless]], but [[spoiler:when hunted by a wolf fairy, she maces him with a load of pepperspray and runs for it.]]
19	* DarkIsNotEvil: Xenia Maes, who occasionally appears as a shadow-like figure and keeps quiet about her motivations and thus can seem quite shady, but [[spoiler:is really a GuardianEntity who has taken custody of the Changeling community and offers protection and help to anyone who comes to her ground.]]
20	* DecadentCourt: Ruby and Emil aside, who are both considered disgraced to some degree, there has yet to be seen a fairy who is not self-serving, manipulative, or outright cruel.
21	* EatingTheEyecandy: Tally sure is [[https://weavecomic.com/comic/293 here]], when Emil picks her up for the ball... in a traditional fairy garb, which includes a sort of half-long skirt and Roman-style sandals.
22	--> '''Tally''': You look-- you-- legs. Wow.
23	* EmbarrassingFirstName: It's ''Taliesin'' Llewellyn. Might yet turn out to be a MeaningfulName, too.
24	* ExoticExtendedMarriage: Apparently, each fairy queen has ''several'' husbands and wives.
25	* ExtremeDoormat: Downplayed, but Tally shows tendencies of this. She's easily intimidated, always keeps up politeness in front of someone she doesn't know, no matter how much that person upsets her, and falls completely apart when a party guest screams at her over her incompetence.
26	** Her adventures show to cause her to [[CharacterDevelopment grow a bit more of a spine]].
27	* TheFairFolk: Most of the people Tally is dealing with now are this, and there have been mentions of Changelings, [[IKnowYourTrueName True Names]], and the use of ColdIron as a murder weapon.
28	* FantasticRacism: The ladies of the fairy court make their contempt for Tally pretty clear. [[spoiler:Though that's not because of Tally being human; it's HalfBreedDiscrimination.]]
29	* GenreSavvy: Tally claims to be this, because she reads a lot of corny novels... but then, she tells a fairy her ''true name''.
30	* GetOut: Tally shouts this at Delia after TheReveal: [[spoiler:That Delia has always known Tally was a Changeling, and sent her to get the job at Xenia's place so she would have a chance to be integrated into the Changeling community.]]
31	* GracefulLadiesLikePurple: Tally has been seen wearing four different purple dresses for the bigger part of the comic so far (one of those only in a dream sequence though), and she is definitely a feminine, girlish sort of girl.
32	* HalfHumanHybrid: Apparently, offspring of a fairy and a human is sort of common; those children are called Changelings. [[spoiler:Tally is one, and so are Kitty and her little sister.]]
33	* TheHecateSisters: The three seers, who are called "the sisters" despite being clearly of very different age -- a kind, young woman, a middle-aged woman with a wry, sardonic attitude, and an eerie, eccentric old woman. They give Tally a lengthy, hardly comprehensible [[TheProphecy prophecy]] about her abilities and her purpose. Note that the pages in which they make their prophecy are visibly interwoven [[RuleOfSymbolism by several]] [[RedStringOfFate red strings]].
34	* HeirClubForMen: [[GenderInvertedTrope Gender-inverted]], because the fairy society is a {{Matriarchy}}: Emil, despite being born a prince, is treated like shit by his mother and has no right to inherit anything; he's also expected (and urged) to marry and make children over no long.
35	* HeroicBSOD: After witnessing a murder (and something strange going on with the corpse), Tally goes somewhat understandably into shock.
36	* InhumanlyBeautifulRace: The fairies; none of those we encounter is anything less than gorgeous.
37	* MagicalSociety: The fairies exist as long as humans do, and have always lived parallel to them. Many of them walk through the human world everyday without being recognized. Then there's the Changeling community which is somewhere on the edge between, consisting of the children fairies had with human spouses.
38	* TheMarvelousDeer: A mysterious white ghost doe keeps appearing to Tally. [[spoiler:She leads her away from a werewolf who chases her, and through a portal into the fairy world, but also back home. The doe might be a manifestation of Tally's powers; as of now, Tally has white hair herself and is said to be able to wander between the worlds, and at least one person has called her "fawn".]]
39	* MuggleBestFriend: Delia Perlman, Tally's best friend and neighbor (and daughter of Tally's landslord), a nice and fairly common girl. [[spoiler:[[SubvertedTrope That is]], until she turns out to always have known everything about fairies. She knew what Tally was even when Tally herself didn't know.]]
40	* NaiveEverygirl: Tally has no idea what she has gotten herself into, having grown up as a normal girl far away from any magic.
41	* NeverFoundTheBody: Well, no, because it dissolved into flowers. Makes investigation way complicated.
42	* {{Nephewism}}: Tally has been raised by her aunt from the age of 10 on. [[spoiler:Doubles as MuggleFosterParents as Tally is not fully human.]]
43	* OccultDetective: Ruby and Howard first appear to be normal cops, but soon turn out to work for the fairy court and investigate the crime at hand with supernatural methods.
44	* OhCrap: Emil has a moment of this when he's told that Tally talked to someone nicknamed "Creepy Misha", a fairy guy [[spoiler:who can shapeshift into a wolf and is meanwhile hunting Tally.]]
45	* OrphansPlotTrinket: Tally has the traditional locket, one half of which containing a miniature map that marks her original home, the other half a photo of baby Tally with her parents... except her father's face is strangely blurry.
46	* OurFairiesAreDifferent: The fairies are human-sized, very beautiful, pointy-eared, don't have wings (in default mode at least), can have unusual eye or hair colors and some non-human features (at least one of them has been seen with antlers), and all of them are capable of doing magic in some way, e. g. [[VoluntaryShapeshifting transform themselves]]. They are definitely ''not'' the sunny, wish-fulfilling sort of fairies, but more likely the sort of people who'd abduct you and leave you lost in the deep dark woods.
47	* ParentalAbandonment: Apparently, Tally's father just loaded her off at her aunt's when she was 10 years old, then [[DisappearedDad went lost]], while [[MissingMom her mother]] seemed to succumb to IncurableCoughOfDeath, the cause of which is unknown as of yet.
48	** It's a recurring theme with [[spoiler:fairy parents; Kitty's and Lizzie's father also left his human wife and his Changeling children.]]
49	* PlayingWithFire: Janet tells that her daughter Kitty used to set her bed on fire by accident when she was young and had nightmares. [[spoiler:It's a Changeling power over which Kitty had no control as a kid.]]
50	* PointyEars: The fairies have them, though they can usually cover it up with jewelry or hair when among humans. [[spoiler:It's subtle, but Tally's ears become pointier, too.]]
51	* PowerDyesYourHair: Tally starts out as a blonde with brown eyes; after her stay in the fairy world and contact with magic, her hair [[MysticalWhiteHair bleaches out to pure white]], and her eyes turn purple.
52	* ReallySevenHundredYearsOld: More like, several thousands of years old; [[spoiler:Xenia Maes]], who is called "the Grey Queen" or "the Night Lady" by some. Of course, it's entirely possible that other fairies are also OlderThanTheyLook, but with her, it gets specific mention.
53	--> '''[[spoiler:Xenia]]''': I am older than the ground you stand on, girl. I have seen more stars die than men have lived.
54	* RebelPrince: Emil Ahriman, the Prince of the House of the Winged Serpent... who has a long record of petty crimes, plays with his magic in public places, and generally won't do what his family wants him to. [[spoiler:JustifiedTrope though, as he's not expected or even allowed to inherit any power or prestige, [[EvilMatriarch his mother]] emotionally abused him, and she also [[ArrangedMarriage forced him into marriage]]. After that, he witnessed (and was suspected to be guilty of) the murder of his wife and most of his co-spouses. By now, Emil is kind of a mess.]]
55	* ShipTease: Tally has plenty of this with [[LoveTriangle both Emil and Ruby]].
56	* ShoutOut: To familiarize with fairy rules, Tally claims to have watched ''Film/{{Labyrinth}}'' ten million times.
57	* TimeAbyss: While possibly more than that, so far two fairies might qualify. [[spoiler:Tatiana]] is acknowledged as senior of queens, predating them by generations, and has stated that she has watched kingdoms burn and civilizations disappear beneath waves. [[spoiler:Xenia,]] as stated above, has claimed to be old on cosmic scale. [[spoiler:Both of them have shown ability to shapeshift in [[HumanoidAbomination more ethereal, stranger form]] that seems more fitting of an elemental spirit than bone and flesh being.]]
58	* VengefulGhost: Rhiannon, the fairy who got murdered, has become this. Getting killed apparently has somewhat [[AxCrazy eaten away at her sanity]].
59	* WeirdnessCensor: Most fairies have no issues to be in the human world completely unnoticed, despite the fact that some of them have odd appearances with strange eye colors, marks on their face, and the occasional horns.

Context Webcomic / TheWeave